ROLL UP AT BRITAIN'S FIRST DOPE CAFE

Cannabis Cafe Remains On The Right Side Of The Authorities

Stockport has never seen anything like it. Over the past two months
hundreds, if not thousands, of people have been making pilgrimages from
London, Edinburgh, Carlisle and Milton Keynes. They come by train and car
in pursuit of news spreading by word of mouth and the internet: Stockport
is home to Britain's first Amsterdam-style coffee shop.

Tucked away in a quiet, cobbled retail centre, the innocuous-seeming "Dutch
Experience" is betrayed only by the sound of garrulous chatter, and the
smell of marijuana wafting in the night air. Its founder, Colin Davies, a
former carpenter, says the number of visitors has increased sharply after
the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, announced that cannabis possession will
soon no longer be an arrestable offence. Davies reckons he gets more than
500 visitors a day. "I've created a monster," he laughs, as he sits on the
bench, taking a puff. "They're coming from all over the country - the
closest coffee shop is in Holland."

His customers sit playing cards or table football, drinking coffee and
chatting. Some are nervous on their first visit, while others have been
coming every day since it opened on September 15.

Davies became a cannabis activist after shattering his back in a fall and
finding that the drug was the best one for relieving pain. The purpose of
the shop is to use the money made from social users of cannabis to provide
it free - or at cost price - for medicinal users: "People in wheelchairs
shouldn't have to pay for their medicine," he says.

One woman, in her early 40s, whose hands are crippled with rheumatoid
arthritis, was particularly appreciative: "The pain relief is far better
than anything I can get from the doctor. And I get it for free - I couldn't
afford to buy it."

Two weeks before opening, Davies and his Dutch partner, Nol van Scheik,
wrote to the police and the local council setting out their plans. The
police raided the shop on the day he opened, but they reopened a few hours
later. Since then they have been left alone. Davies stays on the right side
of police tolerance by not selling cannabis openly through a booth.

Other cannabis campaigners are eyeing the Stockport trailblazer with envy,
and there are already plans for shops in other parts of England, including
London.

The Observer